Veterans League conference: Fikile Mbalula’s late arrival annoys Thabo Mbeki

ANC secretary general Fikile Mbalula.

• Fikile Mbalula addressed the Veterans League conference two hours later than the scheduled time.
• Thabo Mbeki was not pleased with the late start of the gathering. 
• The veterans warned that unethical leadership was a potential downfall for the party.

ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula, who irked former president Thabo Mbeki by arriving at the Veterans League conference two hours late, asked the organisation’s elders not to “drown” the current leadership, but to assist it.

Mbalula was scheduled to open the conference at 13:00 on Friday, according to the official programme, but only spoke at around 15:00.

He told the more than 400 delegates that, as members with 40 or more years of service in the ANC, it was up to them to discipline the current leaders when they became “too comfortable”.

He was speaking on the first day of the three-day conference in Boksburg, Gauteng.

For the ANC, veterans are members with 40 or more years of unbroken membership in the organisation.

Mbalula said:

He had earlier drawn the ire of Mbeki, who was sitting next to anti-apartheid activist Sophie de Bruyn.

De Bruyn was part of the iconic women’s march to the Union Buildings in Pretoria on 9 August 1956 – which is now the official Women’s Day.

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Whispering to De Bruyn after Mbalula had not arrived for the conference’s scheduled start time, a visibly annoyed Mbeki said: “uMbalula is supposed to open [the conference], and he is nowhere in sight.”

When he finally addressed the conference, Mbalula asked the party’s veterans to help the organisation enforce discipline and to do away with what he called “delinquent behaviour”.

“Any comrade who has been charged in a court of law must step aside. Any comrade whose action might undermine the standing of the ANC must explain him or herself to the Integrity Commission of the ANC,” Mbalula said.

Snuki Zikalala, who was the league’s conference convenor, gave a bleak picture of the ANC in his political report.

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He called out what he said was “backsliding” in the weakening of political systems, as well as “unethical leaders [who] hijack democratic processes and contest for positions to capture power”.

The league is expected to elect its new leadership this weekend.

It is the ANC’s last league to hold an elective conference following the Youth League conference, which elected Collen Malatji as its president.

Last week, the Women’s League elected Sisisi Tolashe as its president. 

Zikalala is said to be the frontrunner for president of the Veterans League.